Scenarios & Opportunities

Summary: LOB
systems play a crucial role in supporting the functioning of businesses across
a wide range of industries and markets. “The Results Gap” described in this
paper plagues a significant majority of existing LOB system deployments. This
trend will continue if solutions to bridge the gap are not implemented to
unlock the value of LOB system investments across the broad spectrum of
business application users.

Contents

Introduction

Investments in deploying and maintaining
line-of-business (LOB) software systems constitute the significant percentage
of IT-related spending in the small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) and
enterprise business segments. The vast majority of businesses invest in
purchasing and integrating vendor offerings that best address the needs of
their business model(s), industry vertical(s), and user requirements. This
trend is expected to continue and grow well into the future. The SMB market in
specific is a multibillion dollar segment with no clear industry leader and a
plethora of opportunities. The widespread fragmentation in the business sizes,
reach, and domain specific verticals within the broader market segments can be
seen as an opportunity for multiple players to co-exist and thrive.

Over 50 percent of LOB system investments
fail to meet user expectations today, resulting in adoption challenges and
failure to unlock the full business value of LOB systems. Highly structured
system processes and user experiences that fail to easily adapt to changing
business requirements, and fail to integrate seamlessly with the unstructured
real world business processes and business user productivity tools, are the primary
causes of the user adoption and return on investment (ROI) challenges
experienced in LOB system deployments. LOB systems that offer solutions that
are best aligned with an industry’s core competencies, which can easily adapt
to changing domain requirements, and which can align/integrate seamlessly with
real world business processes and user experience requirements, will have a
definite edge over competitive offerings that fall short in one or more of
these aspects. A LOB system with these characteristics exhibits the vital user
and process centric traits core to materializing user adoption and the desired
ROI.

Focusing on core competencies is vital to
making timely strides and capitalizing on market opportunities. This applies
across the board to all industries and markets, including LOB system vendors.
LOB system vendors should carefully evaluate the value of proprietary platform
investments in frameworks to enable user and process centric experiences in
lieu of leveraging the core competencies of a well-established platform vendor
in this space. Leveraging the solution frameworks of a well-established
platform vendor to enable user and process-centric experiences will enable LOB
system vendors to instead focus on their core competencies of implementing and
customizing business processes and services relevant to their industries and
verticals, resulting in an improved ability to respond to shifting
market/industry requirements.

With the 2007 release, the Microsoft Office
System has evolved from being the world’s most popular suite of business
productivity tools to becoming a complete solutions platform that
integrates deeply with the broader and Microsoft platform, to enable building
user and process centric business solutions that can address the LOB system
adoption and ROI challenges. This is made possible by a collection of tools and
services that make it possible to easily and deeply integrate LOB processes and
rich user experiences for LOB data access, analysis, and manipulation, within
the broadly deployed and widely popular Microsoft Office rich client and
SharePoint Web/browser portal user interfaces.

This paper presents a broad overview of the
opportunities and scenarios for integrating LOB systems with the Microsoft
Office System. The paper is targeted at LOB system vendors, LOB solution
integrators, and corporate IT departments. Senior technology business decision
makers are the primary target audience for this paper.

This paper is not a technical deep-dive
into the 2007 Microsoft Office System. The core technology aspects are
discussed at the appropriate level throughout the paper. Links to related
deep-dive technical resources are provided at the end of this paper to enable
further offline exploration.

Note: The
information in this paper applies to the 2007 Microsoft Office System

Part 1
– Understanding the Results Gap

This section provides an overview of LOB
systems, the requirements and expectations of business application users, and
the factors that influence adoption/ROI challenges in LOB system deployments.

Line of Business Systems (LOB
Systems)

In the context of this paper, the term “LOB
system(s)” is used to refer to a software application or a suite of software
applications that integrate the core data and processes of a business
organization. LOB systems play an integral role in supporting day to day
operations and mid-long term business planning and monitoring across a wide
range of businesses and industries in the SMB and enterprise segments.

LOB systems can be classified as
“back-office” and “front-office” systems, as depicted in Figure 1.

The users who interact with the
applications at each of these layers have vastly different skill sets, working
styles, and functional requirements.

It must be noted that LOB systems in the
context of this paper are not limited to generic ERP, SCM, and CRM software
solutions. Related examples have been referenced here based on the broader user
familiarity with these systems. Domain-specific solutions that target
specialized industry verticals, such as the public sector, health care, and
banking, are also considered as LOB systems in the context of this paper.

LOB Systems and Users

Figure 2 depicts the different categories
of users who interact with LOB systems. Users in each of these categories have
vastly different skill sets, working styles, and functional requirements.

Figure 2. LOB System Users

Operational workers are transaction focused and primarily use back-office systems to
record and update transactional data in response to operational business
transactions as they occur in real time. These users rarely have requirements
to access data beyond the scope of their transactional boundaries. They are
usually not very fluent in business productivity clients/tools. They are
trained to use structured and transactional LOB clients to interact with the
back-office LOB systems relevant to their job function. Inventory clerks,
machine operators, and service technicians are a few examples of operational
workers.

Knowledge/information workers specialize in higher level and consolidated business functions.
They constitute a key and significant percentage of LOB system users. They
primarily use front-office LOB systems to access, analyze, and/or update
consolidated data that spans one or more back-office LOB system modules. These
workers are power users and are proficient in using unstructured business
productivity applications such as Microsoft Excel, Word, Outlook, and
PowerPoint. Business productivity clients/tools are their preferred interfaces
for accessing and acting upon integrated and consolidated LOB data relevant to
the business processes of relevance to their job functions. Given a choice,
these users would prefer to not install or log on to proprietary LOB system
clients to access the data required for completing their job functions. CRM/SRM
representatives, project managers, and financial analysts are a few examples of
knowledge/information workers.

Management
and executive level users have a broader tactical and strategic focus.
Obtaining consolidated and timely 360-degree views of all aspects of a business
is of primary importance to these users. These users rely on strategic
dashboards and alerts to monitor overall business health, and also use business
productivity applications for drill down/explorative analysis, collaboration,
and communication. Given a choice, these users would prefer to not install or
log on to proprietary LOB system clients to access the data required for completing
their job functions. All CXO (CEO, CIO, CFO, COO) and senior management level
users fit into this user category.

The Results Gap

The previous section introduced the
different groups of LOB system users and their varying skill sets, working
styles, and functional requirements. A number of LOB systems do not recognize
these differences and invest in common user experience capabilities for
operational workers, knowledge workers, and executives/managers. These user
experiences are commonly surfaced through a mix of proprietary and highly
structured rich clients and/or Web portals, which fail to recognize the
differences in working styles and functional requirements across the distinct
user groups. This is depicted in Figure 3.

Figure 3. LOB systems and users –one size fits all

The “one size fits all” structured approach
to surfacing LOB system user experiences is the primary cause of user adoption
and ROI challenges experienced in LOB system deployments. This is specifically
most relevant to the knowledge/information worker and the executive/management
user communities (who will collectively be referred to henceforth as
information workers in the context of this paper), where the attributes
exhibited by LOB systems are the polar opposites of the user working styles and
functional requirements. This shortcoming is commonly referred to as “The
Results Gap,” as depicted in Figure 4, which signifies the challenges that
these users face to unlock the full value of LOB system investments.

Figure 4. The Results Gap

Part 2
– Addressing the Results Gap

This section describes the solution
requirements that must be addressed to bridge “The Results Gap” and presents
the scenarios and opportunities for leveraging the core competencies of the
Microsoft Office System as a practical means to achieving the same.

Solution Requirements

A solution platform that
addresses the real-world LOB information worker requirements described in this
section is well positioned to bridge “The Results Gap.” The emphasis on a platform
is important to observe because the solution framework should be based on
established and repeatable patterns that can be applied across multiple LOB
systems targeting different industries and verticals.

A solution platform should support the
requirements described in this section to enable user and process centric LOB
solutions that can align and integrate seamlessly with the real world of
information work to bridge “The Results Gap”.

Integration with Familiar Business
Productivity Clients

Information workers constitute the
significant majority of LOB system users. Information workers spend the bulk of
their day in business productivity clients analyzing data, performing data
manipulations, collaborating with co-workers, and responding to requests for
information. Delivering role-tailored LOB system user experiences that are
deeply integrated into the business productivity clients that information
workers are intimately familiar with is a core opportunity and requirement to
make LOB systems more accessible to these users.

Many LOB systems require information
workers to log on to proprietary clients and navigate a complex set of menus
and screens to gain access to the data required to perform their job functions.
Some LOB systems provide information workers with consolidated role-tailored
business portals that do a decent job at presenting the big picture view but
fall short in addressing unstructured drill-down analysis and collaboration
requirements.

Irrespective of the LOB system clients they
use, information workers eventually export and integrate relevant LOB data into
familiar business productivity clients to complete their tasks. Most LOB
systems provide UI options within the proprietary clients to export LOB data to
popular business productivity clients like Microsoft Excel and Word. However,
these capabilities do not mitigate the far-from-optimal user experience of
navigating application menus and multiple forms in the LOB clients to
consolidate the data required to complete an information worker task. They also
do not enable information workers to execute actions that write/update LOB data
from within the business productivity clients. Information workers must
manually consolidate the results of work executed in business productivity clients
to post data writes/updates from within the proprietary LOB system clients.

Enabling deeply integrated and
role-tailored experiences for accessing LOB data and executing information
worker tasks from within familiar business productivity clients would be a far
more optimal solution to bridge the user productivity gaps in the Information
Worker community.

Data Integration

Integrated views of data that are
seamlessly consolidated from across multiple related LOB subsystems and
presented to users in a role-tailored and contextual manner are important
enabling capabilities for information workers.

Data integration is of significant
pertinence across the broad spectrum of front-office LOB applications used by
information workers. These include domain-specific applications, such as CRM,
and generic systems, such as search, business intelligence (BI)/reporting, and
planning/forecasting.

Business productivity can be significantly
enhanced by enabling integrated and consolidated access to LOB data from within
the context of role-tailored information worker business portals and business
productivity clients. Enabling such deeply integrated experiences in familiar
environments will eliminate the need for information workers to navigate
proprietary LOB system clients to access the data required to execute their job
functions. Having contextual and consolidated access to pertinent data from
within the business productivity client comfort zones contributes to unlocking
the value of LOB systems in the information workers community.

Business Documents

Business documents with integrated LOB data
are de facto artifacts in a wide range of business processes. Business
documents can vary in regards to the flexibility of their formats. Status
reports, contracts, planning documents and spreadsheets, business communication
templates, and business presentations are examples of free format business
documents whose layouts and non-LOB content can vary frequently to accommodate
changing requirements and conditions. Business documents, such as sales
invoices, purchase invoices, and material requisition slips, are examples of
more highly structured documents that tend to retain a fixed format over an
elongated duration of time.

Business document templates and business
document instances are commonly composed in business productivity clients by
accessing and integrating related LOB data. Many information workers tend to
spend a significant chunk of their time composing, reviewing, collaborating on,
and presenting business documents. Most LOB systems expose options within their
proprietary client interfaces to export raw LOB data to one or more relevant
business productivity clients from within which business document instances can
be composed. This approach requires users to navigate menus and forms in the
LOB system client(s) to locate and export the data required to compose the
documents. Some LOB systems offer additional capabilities that enable a user to
push a button in the client and generate a formatted document with embedded LOB
data. However, any modifications to the document content that require access
and integration of additional or alternate data will land the user back in the
LOB system client(s).

A related problem in the context of
business documents is that of distributed document silos. Simply stated,
distributed document silos is the term used to refer to the condition where
multiple versions of one or more business documents exist on individual user
workstations and are updated and used independently of each other. This is a
non-optimal situation because it could lead to multiple conflicting versions of
information that should ideally be maintained at all times as a single unified
version of the truth, being used as the base for business decisions. A solution
platform should support modeling business documents as first -lass LOB content
types that can be managed, accessed, and versioned in a centralized manner to
address this problem.

Unstructured and Collaborative
Business Processes

Real-world information worker business
processes are seldom sequential and structured. Core attributes of real-world
information worker business processes include complex and, at times,
unstructured information flows that must eventually be materialized as LOB
data, structured and unstructured collaboration within and across organization
boundaries, the use of a wide variety of communication mechanisms, requirements
to be able to work offline and synchronize data when connected, and frequently
changing business policies. LOB systems tend to wrap such business processes in
highly structured facades that do not align with the real world of information
work.

To address “The Results Gap” in this
aspect, a solution platform should support materializing unstructured and
collaborative business processes through a deep integration with business
productivity clients, tools, and devices that align with the real world of
information work.

Figure 5 illustrates the unstructured and
collaborative steps that play a role in converting an opportunity to a quote
within a broader “sales lead-to-invoicing” business process. Notice the
structured modeling of the business process in the LOB systems layer (CRM +
ERP), and the interplay of the unstructured collaborations and communications
between information workers to materialize an instance of the process in the
real world. Also note the annotations in the unstructured layer that depict the
use of a variety of business productivity applications and devices throughout
the process.

Figure 5. Real-world information work

Manual transfer of data and activity
synchronization between the LOB and the unstructured real-world business
process layers is the norm in the majority of LOB system deployments today.
This results in a significant information worker productivity gap caused by the
inability of a business process implementation in a LOB system to align with
the real world of information work.

LOB systems can bridge this gap by enabling
the materialization of real-world business processes from start to finish
through automated and collaborative human centric workflows and a deep
integration with business productivity applications and devices used in the
real world.

Customizable and Self-Serving

The unstructured nature of real-world
information work and the varying functional requirements of information workers
require a supporting platform to enable solutions that are customizable and
self-serving without requiring constant IT involvement. Information workers
should be able to customize the out-of-the-box solution and compose custom
application artifacts to access information and execute actions that are not
directly accessible using the out-of-the-box solution interfaces. Enabling
these capabilities from within the context of information worker business
productivity client interfaces is essential to bridge “The Results Gap.”

Compliant Solutions

Compliancy is currently a hot topic that
imposes a variety of mandatory requirements on the processes and execution of
business organizations. Ensuring that compliancy requirements are adhered to in
the unstructured world of information work introduces some interesting
functional requirements and related challenges. The solution platform must
support modeling and seamlessly integrating compliance policies in information
worker business processes. The enforcement of compliance policies should be
deeply integrated and as transparent as possible to the user. It should also be
possible to easily customize the policies to respond to mandatory changing
requirements.

The Microsoft Office System is a
comprehensive and open solution platform that LOB systems can integrate with to
bridge “The Results Gap.” With the 2007 release, the Microsoft Office System
has evolved from being the world’s most popular suite of business productivity
tools to becoming a complete solutions platform that deeply integrates
with the broader Microsoft platform to enable building user and process centric
business solutions referred to as Office Business Applications (OBAs). OBAs can
be designed and implemented to bridge “The Results Gap” by addressing the broad
set of information worker requirements described in the previous section. This
is made possible by a collection of platform applications, tools, and services
that make it viable to easily and deeply integrate LOB processes and rich user
experiences for LOB data access, analysis, and manipulation, within the broadly
deployed and widely popular Microsoft Office Business Productivity applications
and role-tailored business portals built on Windows SharePoint Services (WSS)
and the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS).

Integrating with and leveraging the core
competencies of the Microsoft Office System in bridging “The Results Gap” is a
very compelling and practical solution that LOB system vendors and corporate IT
departments can adopt to unlock the value of their LOB solutions across the
broad segments of business application users.

Figures 6 and 7 illustrate the attributes
and capabilities of LOB systems and the Microsoft Office System and how they
can be integrated to build OBAs that bridge “The Results Gap.”

Figure 6. LOB Systems and the Microsoft Office System

Figure 7. OBA Solution Attributes

The following sections provide an overview
of the OBA platform and how its capabilities address the solution requirements
to bridge “The Results Gap.”

The Microsoft Office System—The
Platform for OBAs

The Microsoft Office System is a complete
solutions platform that integrates deeply with the broader and Microsoft
platform, to enable building user and process centric business solutions
referred to as Office Business Applications (OBAs). OBAs are not about
discarding existing investments in LOB systems. LOB systems are crucial to the
functioning of a business, and OBAs are not intended or positioned to replace
them. Building OBAs is about integrating existing LOB systems with the
Microsoft Office System to use its established core competencies in addressing
the solution requirements to bridge “The Results Gap” and unlock the full value
of LOB system investments.

The Microsoft Office System comprises a
collection of platform applications, tools, and services that make it viable to
easily and deeply integrate LOB processes and rich user experiences for LOB
data access, analysis, and manipulation, within the broadly deployed and widely
popular Microsoft Office Business Productivity applications and role-tailored
business portals built on Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and the Microsoft
Office SharePoint Server (MOSS).

Figure 8 illustrates the components and
capabilities of the Microsoft Office System and the integration of LOB Systems
with the Microsoft Office System to materialize OBAs.

Figure 8. The Office Business Applications Platform

The core components of the Microsoft Office
System include the Microsoft Office Business Productivity client applications
(Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, InfoPath, and Visio being the most widely
deployed and used) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). Different
levels of LOB system integration can be accomplished across these offerings to
materialize OBAs. Solutions can also optionally use the services and
capabilities of domain-specific Office Application Servers, such as Microsoft
Office PerformancePoint Server (advanced BI for planning, monitoring, and
analytics) and Microsoft Office Live Communications Server (real-time
communications and collaboration).

Open standards and interoperability are
core tenets of the Microsoft Office System. The metadata definitions of OBA
solution objects are based on XML schemas, all Office products are service
enabled from ground up (see the OBAs and Service
Orientation section in this paper), and interoperable OpenXML file formats
are the default schemas for business documents created using/generated for the
Microsoft Office business productivity client applications.

The Microsoft Office System is also
designed for extensibility from the ground up. Extensibility is enabled across
the Office client and server offerings. The Office business productivity
clients can be fully customized and extended to enable role-tailored user
experiences and introduce required levels of structure when accessing and
manipulating LOB data. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is a fully extensible
platform that supports/enables customized extensions to all its core service
offerings.

It must be noted that Microsoft Office
integrated solutions deeply integrate with the core Microsoft platform and the
Microsoft .NET Framework. Visual Studio .NET and managed .NET programming
languages (such as Visual C# and Visual Basic .NET) are the primary development
tools for building OBAs. This implies that all capabilities of the broader
Microsoft platform and the .NET Framework can be used when designing OBAs. It
also implies that existing investments and skills in .NET development and
related software development life cycle (SDLC) practices can be fully leveraged
in the OBA solution development process.

Information workers are power users who are
proficient at using unstructured business productivity applications like
Microsoft Excel, Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint. Business productivity
clients/tools are their preferred interfaces for accessing and acting upon
integrated and consolidated LOB data relevant to the business processes of
relevance to their job functions. Given a choice, information workers would
prefer to not install or log on to proprietary LOB system clients to access the
data required for completing their job functions.

Enabling seamless and integrated access to
LOB data from within the context of the widely deployed and broadly adopted
Microsoft Office client applications is a proven approach to successfully
extend the reach of LOB systems to information workers and to unlock the value
of LOB system investments. Examples of related scenarios are described in the OBA Scenarios section of this paper.

The benefits of enabling seamless access to
LOB data and processes from within the Microsoft Office client applications are
generally well recognized. The challenges are more commonly in relation to
developing an understanding of how to accomplish this and concerns regarding
investments in related technology and development skills.

Figure 9 illustrates the approaches that
can be taken to integrate access to LOB data and processes in the Microsoft
Office client applications.

LOB system integration interfaces in the
Microsoft Office client applications are implemented and deployed as Office
client add-ins. Add-ins can be implemented to function at the scope of an
entire Microsoft Office client application or at the scope of individual
document instances (where applicable). Application-level add-ins enable generic
LOB system integration capabilities that are not document-specific. A generic
business data look-up add-in that enables querying and integrating LOB data in
any context is an example of an application-level add-in. Document-level
add-ins are used to integrate capabilities which are specific to a particular
type business document that is created, managed, and collaborated upon using a
Microsoft Office client application like Word or Excel. Document templates
designed for business communications and specialized tasks like planning,
budgeting, and forecasting are examples of scenarios where document-level
add-ins can be implemented to facilitate the integration of contextual LOB data
and processes.

The two commonly adopted patterns to
integrate LOB systems with the Office client applications are the Direct Access
pattern and the Mediated pattern. The choice of the pattern to use should be
solution specific and determined by the functional requirements. In the Direct
Access pattern, Office client applications can integrate with LOB systems by
directly consuming interfaces exposed by the LOB system layer. The supported
interfaces for this pattern include ADO.NET data providers and Web services.
Web services, when available, are the preferred interfaces for this type of
integration. In the Mediated pattern integration is achieved by using
interfaces exposed by a middle tier application server which exposes additional
services over the core LOB system layer. The Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
is an example of a middle-tier application server whose capabilities will be
introduced in the next section.

The following table describes some LOB
integration scenarios for the most commonly used Microsoft Office client
applications:

Office Application

Scenarios

Microsoft Excel

Information worker scenarios driven by requirements
for spreadsheet-style data analysis, data manipulation, number crunching,
data visualizations, and document processing. Planning, budgeting,
forecasting, and generic business reporting and data analysis are examples of
scenarios that could benefit from a user experience deeply integrated in
Microsoft Excel.

Microsoft Word

Creation and management of structured and
unstructured business documents with LOB data integration.

Microsoft PowerPoint

Creation and management of business presentations
with LOB data integration.

Microsoft Outlook

Mainstream client for information worker LOB data
access and processes that are messaging-centric, collaboration-centric, or
both. Unlike the other Microsoft Office client applications, which have
scenario-specific use cases, Microsoft Outlook is more ubiquitous and can be
customized/extended to serve as the primary LOB client for information
workers whose responsibilities are messaging and/or collaboration centric.

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Outlook client is a great
example of a 100-percent Outlook–integrated user experience for LOB data
access and processes. To explore the CRM Outlook client and get a feel for
similar possibilities in the context of other LOB systems, download the
Microsoft
Dynamics CRM 3.0 Virtual PC Demonstration – August 2007.

The SAP Duet offering includes Microsoft Outlook
integrated user experiences for a number of core business processes. Video
walkthroughs of these scenarios can be accessed at the following link:

In regards to technology and development
skill investments, the tight alignment and integration of the Microsoft Office
System with the broader Microsoft platform and the .NET Framework imply that
all related technology and skill investments can be leveraged in full capacity
to integrate LOB systems with Microsoft Office client applications. Visual
Studio .NET and managed .NET programming languages (Visual C# and Visual Basic
.NET) are the primary tools to build OBAs that integrate with the 2007
Microsoft Office System. This trend will continue into the future and is
unlike, as in the past, when deep COM and C++ development skills were required
to extend the Microsoft Office clients. Visual Studio .NET includes abstracted
visual designers and wizards that make the development experience for building
Office client add-ins similar to that of building Windows Forms and ASP.NET
applications. Governance of development efforts to implement Office client
add-ins can also be achieved through integration with the Visual Studio Team
Foundation Server or other similar systems used for .NET development projects.
These significant enhancements in tools and services make investing in integrating
LOB systems with Office client applications a very practical and viable
solution to addressing “The Results Gap.”

While the benefits of investing in
Microsoft Office client integration is generally obvious, the scenarios and
opportunities for integrating LOB systems with Windows SharePoint Services and
the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is initially not very clear to the broader
community. This section will attempt to de-mystify this subject and provide the
information required to help decision makers make a call on whether SharePoint
integration is an investment that could benefit their OBA solution
requirements. While it is not essential that an OBA solution must integrate
with the SharePoint platform, related capabilities will benefit many common
information worker solution requirements.

It is first and foremost important to
develop a broad understanding of the SharePoint platform and the capabilities
enabled by Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and the Microsoft Office
SharePoint Server (MOSS).

Figure 10 presents a layered view of the
SharePoint platform.

Figure 10. The SharePoint platform

The SharePoint platform is rapidly morphing
from primarily being a solution framework for team and enterprise collaboration
portals to becoming a comprehensive and viable middle-tier application server
for LOB systems. While team and enterprise collaboration portals continue to be
significant strengths of the SharePoint platform, the 2007 release of the
Microsoft Office System introduces a number of core middle-tier application
services in the SharePoint platform that have a broader applicability in the
context of extending the capabilities and reach of LOB systems.

In the context of the SharePoint platform,
it is important to understand the distinction between Windows SharePoint
Services (WSS) and the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). At the grass
roots level, the SharePoint platform is built on top of the broader Microsoft
platform that includes the Microsoft Windows Server operating system, Microsoft
SQL Server, Microsoft Internet Information Server, and the .NET Framework (the
SharePoint development platform). Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) is the core
SharePoint solutions platform that provides the base framework upon which
SharePoint services and solutions are built. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
(MOSS) is built on top of the WSS platform and includes a number of services
that span portals, enterprise content management, LOB system integration, and
middle-tier application services.

Windows SharePoint Services (WSS)

WSS, at its core, is a Web site
provisioning engine with built in support for team level collaboration
workspaces in a corporate network environment. WSS sites can also be configured
to publish Internet-facing content and scale out sites to service thousands of
users in a Web farm deployment. In addition to these out-of-the-box
capabilities, the WSS platform is also an extensible development platform that
can serve LOB solution requirements.

If a simple Web portal solution framework
that enables internal team collaboration workspaces to support LOB processes
and basic data presentation capabilities to extend the reach of business
data/information to users within and outside an organization is a solution
requirement, WSS is a solution platform that should not be ignored.

The Web site provisioning (site model and
storage), management, and security capabilities of the WSS platform greatly
simplify the administrative processes involved in deploying, managing, and
securing both internal team sites and external-facing sites. Abstracted user
interfaces/tools for site administration and a powerful site provisioning
engine enable these benefits. Site administrators can have fully functional
internal and external-facing sites configured and running in a fraction of the
time that it would take to do the same if working directly at the Internet
Information Services (IIS)/ASP.NET layers. Strongly typed .NET object model and
Web service APIs are also provided to enable the implementation of custom
clients to administer and manage WSS deployments.

WSS integrates tightly with the broader Microsoft
platform. Windows Server is the core operating system on which WSS runs. WSS
uses IIS as a front-end Web server to host and scale out Web sites; it uses
Microsoft SQL Server on the back end to store site definitions, content type
definitions, published content, and configuration data.

The flexibility of WSS as a development
platform and its tight integration with the .NET Framework is a double-edged
sword from a custom solution development perspective. LOB system vendors and
corporate IT departments should carefully evaluate the solution requirements
and business constraints to make the right choice in relation to implementing
solutions for application services provided out of the box by Microsoft Office
SharePoint Server (MOSS).

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
(MOSS)

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)
is built on top of the WSS platform and includes many value adding services
that span portals, enterprise content management, LOB system integration, and
middle-tier application services.

In this context, it is important to
recognize that MOSS has an unbreakable dependency on WSS. While it is
theoretically possible to custom build services like those offered by MOSS on
top of the WSS platform, doing so would not be a practical investment of
resources. MOSS is a result of many man years of Microsoft research and
development effort invested in developing the related services and core
competencies. Microsoft’s continued commitment to evolving and adding on to the
set of core services will result in newer innovations and richer capabilities
being enabled in the future releases of the product. Investing in and
leveraging these core competencies and services based on solution requirements
is the recommended practical direction for LOB system vendors and corporate IT
departments.

The following table is a summarized listing
of the MOSS services relevant to LOB systems and the business capabilities that
they enable:

Service

Service type

Capabilities enabled

Enterprise Collaboration
Portals

Portal

Content rich and secure department/enterprise scale
business portals enabled by rich extensible and customizable out of the box
collaboration portal site templates. Portal reach can span intranet and
extranet users.

Content Publishing Portals

Portal

Content rich and secure Internet-facing portals
enabled by out-of-the-box customizable and extensible publishing portal site
templates. Portal reach targeted at external customers and the general
public.

Enterprise Content
Management

Portal and Content Management

Full cycle and customizable content management
processes that span content creation, review, approval, publishing,
versioning, and disposition. Out-of-the-box capabilities support the user
experience and functional requirements of IT, content managers, and content
publishers. Also included is a full featured and customizable records
repository/management site template to support content archival and
disposition policies.

Content Targeting

Portal

Rich extensible metadata support for defining user profiles
and audience groups to selectively target portal content in a role tailored
and contextual manner.

Business Intelligence - Excel Services

Portal and Application Service

Service enablement to extend the reach of Microsoft
Excel spreadsheets, data visualizations, and business formulas that use the
Microsoft Excel calculation engine. Capabilities include deeply integrated
publishing capabilities in the Microsoft Excel rich client to deploy data
views to MOSS content libraries, thin client browser rendering of Excel
spreadsheets and data visualizations, and Web services to enable leveraging
the Excel calculation engine in custom client applications.

Business Intelligence – SQL BI Integration

Portal

Deep out of the box integration with the core SQL BI
offerings (Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services and Microsoft SQL Server
Analysis Services). Out-of-the-box capabilities include the option to
configure MOSS as the SQL Reporting Services Catalog to treat SSRS reports
and data connections as first-class SharePoint content types and a number of
Web parts to integrate the display of SSRS reports and data from SQL Server
Analysis Services Cubes in MOSS portals.

Also includes out-of-box Web parts that can be used
by business users to self-compose LOB data views in MOSS portals.

Current level of support in the 2007 release of MOSS
is limited to read-only data access (using the BDC APIs) with capabilities to
associate actions that reference non-BDC services to facilitate data updates
and write back scenarios. Out-of-the box data presentation support in the
2007 release is also limited to SharePoint portal integration.

Future releases can be expected to add on unified
APIs for data update/write back and out-of=the-box data presentation
capabilities that integrate with the Microsoft Office client applications.

Enterprise Search

Application Service

Core service offering to crawl, index, and enable
searching across a variety of enterprise data sources. Out-of-the-box support
for searching SharePoint sites, Web sites, network folders, public Microsoft
Exchange folders, and LOB data (via the BDC). Custom search data sources can
be integrated into the mix by implementing custom search provider interfaces.

Also includes out-of-the-box customizable site and
page templates to integrate search experiences in MOSS portals, and APIs that
can be used to integrate search capabilities in non-portal clients (Microsoft
Office client applications and custom clients).

Electronic Forms Services

Application Service

Service enablement to extend the reach of electronic
forms designed using Microsoft InfoPath. Core capabilities include deeply
integrated publishing capabilities in the Microsoft InfoPath rich client to
deploy electronic forms to MOSS document libraries and thin client browser
rendering of InfoPath e-Forms.

Collaboration Workflows

Application Service

Rich set of out-of-the-box content collaboration
workflows built on the Windows Workflow Foundation. Also supports customizing
and extending the workflows collection using the Microsoft Office SharePoint
Designer and Visual Studio .NET. The out-of-the-box and custom workflows can
be associated with SharePoint content types surfaced in SharePoint lists and
document libraries. The out-of-the-box workflows collection includes the
following workflow templates to address common content collaboration
requirements:

·Approval

·Feedback collection

·Signature collection

·Disposition

It must be
noted that the references to “content” in the capabilities described in the
preceding table are not limited to just unstructured documents. In the context
of the extended capabilities, it is important to distinguish between the
notions of SharePoint content types and content as in data and data
visualizations published using the portal page and Web part frameworks.

The SharePoint solutions platform comprises
a fully extensible content type metadata framework that can be used to define
and integrate rich LOB integrated content types into the SharePoint Enterprise
Content management (ECM), workflow, and search services. Content types are
physically surfaced in SharePoint as lists, document libraries, and custom
metadata columns associated with lists and document libraries. LOB data
integration in SharePoint content types can be accomplished in one of the
following ways:

Promoting LOB data-bound fields in
unstructured documents to SharePoint document metadata properties.
Example: Promoting the Total Expense Amount data-bound field in an
Expense Report document template to a document metadata property of the
SharePoint document library used to publish and collaborate on individual
expense report instances. The promoted property can be used in interesting
ways in ECM workflows and by the MOSS Enterprise Search service.

Leveraging the BDC service to create LOB
data-bound custom fields that can be reused as metadata attributes across
multiple SharePoint lists and document libraries.

In addition to SharePoint content types,
the page and Web part frameworks can also be used to present views of LOB data
in SharePoint portals. The MOSS Business Data Catalog service includes
out-of-the-box Web parts for surfacing LOB data accessing using the BDC service
in MOSS portals. The base Web part framework can also be used to implement
custom LOB data presentation Web parts.

Overall, MOSS offers a compelling set of
pre-packaged services that could add tremendous value in the context of LOB
systems and solutions. Investing custom development efforts in building similar
services would be a wasted effort for reasons mentioned earlier in this
section.

Technology/Development Skill Investments

As in the case of OBAs that
extend/customize the Microsoft Office client applications, the tight alignment
and integration of the SharePoint platform with the broader Microsoft platform
and the .NET Framework imply that all related technology and skill investments
can be used in full capacity to integrate LOB systems with WSS and MOSS. Visual
Studio .NET and managed .NET programming languages (Visual C# and Visual Basic
.NET) are the primary tools to build OBAs that integrate with the SharePoint
platform. This trend will continue into the future. Visual Studio .NET project
templates for SharePoint development further simplify the development process.
Governance of related development efforts can also be achieved through
integration with the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server or other similar
systems used for .NET development projects. These significant enhancements in
tools and services make investing in integrating LOB systems with the
SharePoint platform a very practical and viable solution when there are
compelling business requirements for doing so.

OBA Capabilities

The following table summarizes the core OBA
platform capabilities in relation to each of the solution requirements
identified as being crucial to bridging “The Results Gap.” Links to related
scenarios, demos, and resources are provided to illustrate some of the
capabilities. The capabilities illustrated in the referenced scenarios/demos
are not intended to be all encompassing and comprehensive. They merely
illustrate some of the OBA solution possibilities. The OBA solution platform
can be used to implement functionally richer and more complete end to end scenarios
in comprehensive real world LOB system integration solutions.

This OBA Reference Application illustrates an
end-to-end e-forms processing scenario in a public sector environment. View
the presentations available on the referenced page and download/walk through
the click-through demonstration

Unstructured and collaborative business processes

Extensibility/Add-in Model to enable the creation of
Microsoft Office client application add-ins to front the initiation,
tracking, and completion of business processes

The OBA Reference Application Pack for Supply Chain
Management implements some interesting unstructured and collaborative
business processes. View the video presentation of the end-to-end solution
available on the referenced page.

Customizable and self-serving

The Composite
Solution Platform section of this paper contains information about how
the Microsoft Office System addresses the customizable and self-serving
solution requirements.

OBAs—A Silver Bullet or Not?

While there are numerous compelling
scenarios and opportunities for integrating LOB systems with the Microsoft
Office System, it must also be noted that Office integration is not a
stand-alone 360-degree silver bullet for all problems pertaining to unlocking
the value of LOB systems.

Poorly designed information worker business
processes for instance result in problems that cannot be solved by just
enabling Office integrated façades. Designing optimal business processes from
the ground up and making the right Office integration investments are crucial
to delivering compelling user and process centric experiences.

Placing Office clients in front of every
user across all levels of an organization is not an optimal investment, either.
One-off transaction–oriented operational workers like service technicians,
machine operators, and order-entry clerks deal with small and specific subsets
of transactional data. These users may not be familiar with business
productivity applications, and they generally feel comfortable working with the
proprietary and structured LOB client UIs that they have been trained to use.
Re-training such users in the Office client applications in lieu of the limited
and structured scope of their functional requirements may not materialize significant
business value. Identifying users who execute (or would like to execute) the
bulk of their job functions in business productivity applications and targeting
related scenarios is the recommended approach.

Finally, a poorly implemented user experience/interface
will face adoption challenges no matter how it is surfaced and even if as an
OBA solution. Thoroughly understanding the functional requirements of
information workers, storyboarding Microsoft Office integrated user
experiences, prototyping solutions, and conducting usability studies up-front
and throughout the formal development cycle are mandatory steps in OBA SDLCs as
in all other software projects.

Net-Net: Well-designed OBA solutions can be
silver bullets to address information worker productivity gaps in relation to
LOB systems. However, OBAs are not all-in-one 360-degree solutions for all
problems pertaining to the usage of LOB systems.

The Business Benefits of
Integrating LOB Systems with the Microsoft Office System

The business benefits of integrating LOB
systems with the Microsoft Office System are many and compelling. The following
are the top three and most significant:

Unlocking the value of LOB system
investments and extending their reach by enabling information workers to
seamlessly access LOB data and execute related actions from within the
comfort zones of broadly deployed and widely popular Microsoft Office
business productivity applications. This is a proven recipe to bridge “The
Results Gap” (see the OBA Evidence in the LOB
Marketplace section of this paper for related evidence).

Integrating with and leveraging the core
competencies of an established platform in addressing “The Results Gap.”
This is a very significant benefit that eliminates the need for
proprietary and expensive platform level investments to address the
related solution requirements. It is also significant from the perspective
of continued future platform advancements (which will be many in the time to
come, considering the focused Microsoft research and development
commitment to this space) being readily accessible and available for
uptake.

The ability to fully leverage existing
investments and competencies in the broader Microsoft platform across all
phases of the SDLC.

Part 3
– OBAs and the Technology Landscape

This section introduces some core topics
related to the positioning of OBAs in the context of the broader technology
landscape.

OBAs and Composite Solutions

Composite business applications are
solutions that are built by weaving together reusable and configurable solution
artifacts. A composite solution platform must enable a framework that supports
building reusable solution artifacts and composing solutions by assembling and
integrating a relevant set of reusable solution artifacts. The reusable
solution artifacts are implemented by IT/Development based on user
requirements. Solution composition is typically performed by power business
users/analysts and at times by IT when business users do not possess the basic
skill set required to compose custom solutions. A composite solution platform
can deliver unparalleled productivity in both cases if leveraged as intended.

The Microsoft Office System was designed
from ground up to support solution composition. Figure 11 illustrates the
opportunities for reusable solution artifacts at the various solution layers
that can be used to compose solutions that integrate with the Microsoft Office
System.

Figure 11. The Microsoft Office System as a composite application
platform

Enabling solution composition requires
disciplined design and development efforts. Without the right set of reusable
solution artifacts, the benefits of composite solutions cannot be materialized
even on the most robust composite solution platform.

The Microsoft Office System is designed
from the ground up to support solution composition. Tools and services to
enable related development and composition activities are provided
out-of-the-box. However, it is up to the developers and users to fully take
advantage of these capabilities. Empowering the business users to self-compose
solutions and investing in the design and development of reusable and
configurable domain-specific solution artifacts, must be embraced as core
tenets to deliver on this premise.

Sample Scenario:

With the right set of reusable solution
artifacts, a Plant Floor Manager could self-compose a role-tailored SharePoint
business portal that includes the following solution artifacts:

A graphical representation of an
interactive plant floor map that enables the detection and analysis of
real time exception conditions.

A list of active safety incidents
recorded in the plant floor and their current status.

Quick links to frequently accessed
resources, including a link to launch an e-form in the browser to fill out
and submit a new safety incident report modeled as a SharePoint content
type with an associated routing workflow (implemented using Windows Workflow
Foundation) to locate and engage a service technician for incident
resolution.

An Excel Services Chart that renders a
graphical display of plant production performance over time.

OBAs and Service Orientation (SOA and S+S)

Service enablement is a core tenet that is
deeply integrated into the design of the Microsoft Office System.
Service-oriented architectures in the context of LOB systems comprise both
service provider components and service consumer components that integrate and
interface with each other to materialize a service-oriented solution. In the
context of the Microsoft Office System, the Microsoft Office client
applications are service consumers, while the Office servers play a dual role
of being service providers and consumers.

The Microsoft Office client applications
have deeply integrated support to enable the consumption of services. This
capability is core to enabling the integration of LOB data in Office client
integrated user experiences. LOB data integrated in the Office client
applications could be sourced from services exposed by on-premise LOB systems
and/or hosted services. Hosted services could be LOB services or generic
utility services like those offered by Windows Live. Figure 12 illustrates a
custom Outlook message inspector whose UI integrates a list of sales leads
retrieved from a CRM system and the Windows Live Maps and Search services to
look up more information about a sales lead and the location of the lead.

Figure 12. A custom Outlook message inspector

The Office servers are dual-faceted. While
they are externally seen as providers of services that can be consumed by
Office client applications and custom clients, their internal implementations
and integration needs also require them to be service consumers. For example,
the MOSS BDC service consumes services exposed by LOB systems to access LOB
data and exposes services that enable service consumers to access LOB data
using a unified API. The MOSS Search service is another example that consumes
services exposed by content sources to crawl and generate search indexes, and
it exposes services that can consumed by service consumers to execute search
queries and navigate search results.

Office servers can also serve as service
providers in live hosted offerings. The Microsoft Office Live platform is a
great example of an online service offering built-on Windows SharePoint
Services.

Figure 13 illustrates the service-oriented
aspects of integrating LOB systems with the Microsoft Office System in
on-premise and hosted deployment models. Integration with external and generic
third-party utility services hosted in the cloud from within both on-premise
and hosted deployments of OBAs, though not explicitly shown in the
illustration, can also be achieved.

Figure 13. OBAs and service orientation

OBAs and the Broader Microsoft
User Experience Platform Initiatives

The deep integration of the Microsoft
Office System with the broader Microsoft platform and the related benefits from
the capabilities, development, and SDLC governance perspectives has been
emphasized in the earlier sections of this paper.

A specific topic in relation to the
positioning of OBAs as the preferred solution for surfacing rich information
worker experiences in lieu of cutting-edge Microsoft presentation technologies,
such as WPF (rich client), ASP.NET AJAX (Web), and Silverlight (Web), deserves some
additional insight.

Information workers prefer integrated
access to LOB data and processes from within their comfort zones in familiar
business productivity applications, as opposed to having to use proprietary LOB
system clients. WPF, ASP.NET AJAX, and Silverlight should be viewed as
technologies that can complement and enable richer OBA/information worker user
experiences. WPF can be leveraged when implementing rich client UIs for add-ins
integrated into the Microsoft Office client applications. Similarly, both
ASP.NET AJAX and Silverlight can be used to implement Web parts, ASP.NET server
controls, and user controls which can be integrated in SharePoint portals to
enable rich and compelling portal user experiences.

From an information worker user experience
perspective, viewing these and other new platform initiatives as complementary
capabilities that can further enrich OBA user experiences is the recommended
approach.

This is not to say that technologies like
WPF, ASP.NET AJAX, and Silverlight do not have other domain-specific use cases
that extend beyond LOB information worker requirements. As mentioned in the
discussion about whether OBAs are a magical silver bullet, Office integrated
user experiences should not be viewed as a “one size fit all” solution to
address all user experience and adoption challenges. There are many valid use
cases for custom rich client applications built using frameworks like WPF, and
for non-SharePoint Web experiences built using frameworks like ASP.NET AJAX and
Silverlight. Some examples include LOB system user interfaces for operational
users who are not familiar with business productivity client applications and
Web site deployments that do not have requirements for a site provisioning
engine or rich collaboration and LOB data integration capabilities.

Part 4
– OBA Opportunities and Evidence

This final section details OBA investment
opportunities for LOB system vendors and corporate IT departments to bridge
“The Results Gap” in their LOB solution offerings and deployments. Examples of
real-world evidence are also provided to support the described investment
opportunities.

OBA Opportunities for LOB Solution
Vendors

Integrating with and leveraging the core
competencies of the Microsoft Office System is a tremendous opportunity for
vendors of packaged LOB systems that run on Windows operating systems to bridge
“The Results Gap” in their product offerings.

Releasing optional Microsoft Office
integrated add-ons for selected business processes is a viable short-term
approach that could be taken (examples:
SAP Duet and
the
Microsoft
Dynamics Office snap-ins) to address information worker productivity
problems in released versions of product offerings.

For future product versions, there is a
compelling and practical opportunity for LOB system vendors to consider
investing in and delivering OBAs as the primary out-of-the-box information
worker interfaces to access their systems. This approach would be similar to
the highly successful decision taken by the Microsoft Dynamics CRM product team
to deliver a 100-percent Microsoft Outlook–integrated rich client experience in
version 3.0 of the product. A similar investment that is based on integrating
with one or more Office business productivity applications and potentially the
SharePoint platform is an equally viable option for other generic and
domain-specific front-office LOB systems. Examples of this include LOB
solutions for supplier relations management, expense management, human resource
management, health plan management, financial services, and manufacturing
execution systems.

When pursuing an investment in a
100-percent OBA solution, it is crucial to thoroughly document all related
business processes and identify the right Microsoft Office integration
opportunities. Engaging with the information workers/business users who will
use the solution during the early stages of the SDLC is vital to ensuring
success. The business users should be involved in documenting and validating
the business processes, assumptions, user experience designs, and proof-of-concept
storyboards.

Compiling business process storyboards and
tagging predefined icons to identify the user roles and business productivity
applications and devices used at each stage is a recommended approach to
document and validate business processes. Figure 14 illustrates a sample
business process storyboard. This will enable a validated understanding of how
a process is executed in the real world, and it will help identify the right
business productivity applications and devices within which information worker
user experiences must be enabled to mirror the real-world information work as
closely as possible in the system.

Figure 14. A business process storyboard

After a collection of all the business
process storyboards relevant to a system is compiled, it is possible to perform
a consolidated analysis and identify common patterns. Reusable implementation
frameworks can then be implemented for the patterns to help materialize
individual scenario instances. For example, the Assemble response and Approve
response phases in the sample Lead-to-Invoice business process depicted in
Figure 11 are also fairly common steps in other business processes. From the
compiled process templates, it would be possible to identify that Microsoft
Word and Microsoft Outlook are the business productivity applications from
within which information workers would like to execute these tasks. The
requirement for a document approval workflow to support the approval process is
also a common requirement that could be identified by studying the business
processes. This information could be translated to requirements for generic
capabilities to enable composing business responses in Microsoft Word by
integrating relevant LOB data, associating approval workflows with individual
instances by leveraging SharePoint, and receiving notifications for workflow
tasks and being to complete the tasks from within Microsoft Outlook. These
requirements translate to solution patterns that can then be implemented to
support materializing individual instances.

Some important requirements may not have
supporting patterns and will need to be implemented as one-off features that
are integrated into the broader solution.

The following are some additional advanced
ISV opportunities that extend beyond integrating with the Microsoft Office
System from within pre-packaged solutions deployed at customer sites:

Implementing and delivering domain
specific reusable OBA solution artifacts that can be assembled and
configured by business users to compose composite solutions.

Implementing and delivering hosted LOB
solutions on the Microsoft Office Live platform.

Implementing and delivering self-hosted
LOB solutions as live services by integrating with Microsoft Office
Servers on the back-end and enabling hooks to integrate with and use
desktop client investments in the Microsoft Office client applications.

All in all, integrating with and leveraging
the competencies of the Microsoft Office System is a compelling and practical
opportunity for LOB system vendors to design and deliver user and
process-centric solutions that align closely with real-world information work
and enable customers to unlock the full value of their investments.

Figure 15 highlights some of the LOB
solution ISV opportunities in the broader OBA opportunities landscape.

Figure 15. OBA opportunities for LOB system vendors

OBA Opportunities and Challenges
in Corporate IT Departments

LOB system investments that are of concern
to corporate IT departments include a combination of one or more home-grown LOB
applications that are regularly maintained and periodically enhanced,
off-the-shelf vendor solutions customized to meet an organization’s business
model and requirements, and legacy systems in a maintenance mode.

Addressing the solution requirements to
bridge “The Results Gap” can help significantly optimize the cycles spent by IT
staff in educating business users and servicing information worker requests for
data. This optimization if materialized will enable IT staff to spend a greater
percentage of their time on higher-value IT functions.

In environments where LOB system
investments are 100-percent off-the-shelf vendor solutions customized to meet
an organization’s business model and requirements, functional requirements to
bridge “The Results Gap” through a deep integration with the Microsoft Office
System could be pushed downstream to the solution vendor(s). However, in the
real world, such requests may never materialize. Requirements to integrate
vendor solutions with home-grown applications and legacy systems introduce a
different a set of challenges.

When faced with the task of building OBAs to
enhance information worker productivity (because of either lack of support from
the LOB system vendor(s) or the home-grown/legacy nature of existing LOB
systems), corporate IT departments have two options: apply the design and
development practices described for LOB system vendors to custom implement OBAs
and partner with and leverage the services of LOB solution integrators to
achieve the same.

Adopting an incremental approach to surface
OBAs for one or more business processes at a time by starting with the
higher-priority processes and gradually working downward through the list is
typically a more practical approach in corporate IT environments where time and
budgetary constraints are usually tight. The flip side and risks of doing this
include lack of consistency in design/implementation approaches and the
potential for the eventual solution(s) to appear as individual silos versus a
consolidated whole. These risks could be mitigated by adopting rigorous
software engineering practices and mandating the identification and reuse of
patterns in every iteration.

When faced with the task of integrating
multiple disparate systems to materialize OBAs, investing efforts in
service-enabling access to data from across the various systems is the
recommended first step. Services are the recommended interfaces to access LOB
data in OBAs. Services will also serve as conduits to leveraging the MOSS
services like the Business Data Catalog (BDC) and Enterprise Search.
Integrating with the MOSS BDC service will enable a unified set of APIs and
interfaces to access LOB data from across multiple disparate LOB systems. The
MOSS Enterprise Search service can use the BDC investments to enable an
integrated LOB data search experience that can be used from within SharePoint
portals, Microsoft Office Client Applications, and custom clients.

All in all, OBAs present compelling
opportunities and interesting challenges in the corporate IT environment. The
options and approaches described in this section can be applied effectively to
address the challenges and enable OBA solutions that help bridge “The Results
Gap” in corporate LOB system investments.

OBA Opportunities for LOB Solution
Integrators

OBAs also present compelling opportunities
for LOB solution integrators. LOB solution integrator opportunities surface
when LOB system vendor offerings fall short in bridging “The Results Gap”
and/or when undertaking related custom development efforts within a corporate
IT setting is a not a viable option. Such circumstances will be fairly common
and will open great opportunities for competitive LOB solution integration
service offerings.

Developing and establishing OBA-centric
practices and services is a highly recommended investment for LOB solution
integrators.

Figure 16 highlights some of the LOB
solution integrator opportunities in the broader OBA opportunities landscape.

Figure 16. OBA opportunities for LOB solution integrators

OBA Evidence in the LOB Marketplace

OBAs are being rapidly adopted as a viable
solution to bridge “The Results Gap” in LOB system investments.

Leading ERP/CRM system vendors like SAP
(Duet) and Microsoft (Microsoft Dynamics CRM) have successfully leveraged the
Microsoft Office System to deliver compelling OBA experiences that have been
embraced by related user communities.

The business solutions space is still a
very open playing field with numerous opportunities to tap into the
multibillion dollar market. The SMB market in specific is a multibillion dollar
segment by itself with no clear industry leader and a plethora of
opportunities. The widespread fragmentation in the business sizes, reach, and
domain-specific verticals within the broader market segments can be seen as an
opportunity for multiple players to co-exist and thrive.

LOB solutions that are best aligned with an
industry’s core competencies, which can adapt easily to changing domain
requirements, and which can align/integrate seamlessly with real-world business
processes and user experience requirements, will have a definite edge over
competitive offerings that fall short in one or more of these aspects. In this
regard, the Microsoft Office System and OBAs enable a tremendous opportunity,
which, if widely adopted, has the potential to even the playing field in
enabling user and process centric experiences that bridge “The Results Gap.”
This would enable LOB system vendors to focus their efforts on delivering
services that enable the core competencies of their target industries and on
adapting to evolving industry requirements.

LOB system vendors and solution integrators
are starting to realize the OBA opportunity. A number of vendors and solution
integrators have started execution to materialize this opportunity, resulting
in the steady formation of a vibrant community and eco system.
OBA Central is the online portal for this
community. Readers should explore this community to get a feel of the OBA
momentum and to explore the existing OBA market evidence.

Conclusion

LOB systems play a crucial role in
supporting the functioning of businesses across a wide range of industries and
markets. “The Results Gap” described in this paper plagues a significant
majority of existing LOB system deployments. This trend will continue if
solutions to bridge the gap are not implemented to unlock the value of LOB
system investments across the broad spectrum of business application users.
Integrating with and leveraging the core competencies of a platform vendor
established in and committed for the long term to IW productivity solutions is
the most practical approach to bridging “The Results Gap” in existing LOB
system deployments and from inside out in future releases of LOB systems. The
Microsoft Office System presents a compelling, practical, and dependable
opportunity for LOB system vendors and corporate IT departments whose LOB
solutions run on the Microsoft platform to materialize such integration and
unlock the full value of LOB system investments. This paper presented an
overview of the related capabilities and scenarios and described the related
opportunities for LOB system vendors, solution integrators, and corporate IT
departments.

The following links point to
top-of-the-line resource centers that can be explored to gain further insight
into the technology aspects of building Office Business Applications and the
related market momentum and opportunities:

OBA
Central: OBA Central is as a vibrant and active online community with
active participation from Microsoft, Microsoft OBA ISVs and services partners,
and customers. OBA Central makes it easy to connect and to find OBA solutions
and services that address your business and technical needs.

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